Have you had the experience of checking on your website’s page ranking for a particular keyword and found that it had dropped off the first page of results?
If so, you’re not alone. Most website owners have been the victim of Losing Page Rank least once, if not more. Don’t panic. Do a bit of investigation and try to figure out why.
What Happened To My Page Rank
First, determine if your site was banned by a search engine. Visit any of the major search engine pages (Google, Yahoo, MSN – now the new Bing) and input your website’s address.
If your site is missing, it could be that it was banned. It could be that your server was down during the last bot visit. It could also be that a mirror site is the one the search engines are indexing.
Perhaps your site has only been online for less than six months – in that instance you are still in what’s called the Google Sandbox and only time will fix the problem. Other search engines have other policies, so what applies at one may not necessarily be relevant to another.
If you rely on inbound links to boost your page ranking, remember that the value of links based on relevancy changes from day to day. Often this is due to a change in page ranking at the site where your inbound link is placed. You don’t have any control over this, but you can do a better job in the future of selecting higher quality pages to post your link.
Of course, if you participate in black hat SEO techniques, there is probable cause to believe your site has been banned, but that is a topic for another article.
Tips To Follow After Losing Your Page Rank
If your site has dropped in rankings due to reasons other than the above, then an overhaul of your site and its SEO may be in order.
You might want to utilise a free online Website Grader to see if you can spot any glaring problems as to why you are Losing Page Rank. The results are not necessarily always accurate, but it can give you a good idea of whether you are targeting the wrong keywords, not including enough of them, or suffering from poor website design and navigation.
Your keywords might apply to a very broad category of searches. It will help your ranking to determine niche and select new, more appropriate, or less competitive keywords based on what you actually offer to visitors. Long tail keywords are often overlooked but they can be a great way to obtain page ranking for the searches most relevant to your site’s content.
Do a competitive analysis. Sometimes, a drop in page rank means that there are a number of new competitors pushing you out of the first page listings. In this instance, it might be time for you to draw on the reserves of your marketing budget and begin a PPC campaign.
Finally, be sure you are practising good SEO. Update your existing pages and make them easy for search engines to index. Consider adding other types of content such as audio or video. Take a look at your site’s design and navigation with fresh eyes and ensure the content is easy to find and that the pages are attractive, informative, and interesting.
There is no need to panic when you find your site’s page ranking has dropped. It happens to even the most seasoned internet marketers. SEO and SEM are not evergreen and need to be a constant work-in-progress for you.
See you at the top of Google!
Sean Rasmussen
SEO Australia Pacific
AussieSEO.com © 2007 - 2010
Hi Sean,
I have been working on a new site that I haven’t had up for very long. For the first few weeks I couldn’t find the site in Google at all. I knew that it would take a while to show up though.
Last week I was checking to see if my site was showing up yet and it was ranked eight in Market Samurai. I was so excited but it was short-lived. The next day it was gone and hasn’t come back since.
Is this just because the site is new?
.-= Jazz Salinger´s last blog ..Learn and Earn Competition – This is It =-.
It could possibly be something to do with the new site Jazz. Don’t let it worry you, keep working on it and it will come back
Hi Sean
I haven’t had the blessing yet of ranking #1 in Google however, this is great information to remember especially if you drop from first position.
The fact that you explain why you may lose your page rank and how you can get it back is very important to know and I can see from your guidelines that there are plenty of things you can do to get back up into first position again.
It seems to me that even people who are always working on their sites can slip away from leading positions at times. Would this be correct?
.-= Elly´s last blog .. =-.
Yes Elly, that happens. It is somewhat fluid unless you are so highly ranked and unique that no one can compete with you.
One thing to do, as Sean points out is to keep working on SEO and also keep adding good, informative and quality content on a regular basis. Google does love good content and will spider more if a site is actively doing this
If you “lose you page ranking” you have to do what any type of marketer has to do when their rankings fall: research you market again. If the drop cannot be ascribed to technical issues then you have to determine what has changed with your targeted demographic and/or your competitors. Why are you no longer amongst the top contenders? As I have said before, the online tools are there to assist you.
.-= Don White´s last blog ..Psycho- =-.
This is a good article. Timely too. My personal site which is about reading fiction moves up and down on page 1 – and I have neglected the site a lot over the last few months.
It get 4th for the title “top fiction books to read” and 1st for “top fiction books to read for fun” – longtails that work.
It would compete better for shorter ones if I worked on it more – plus added video or looked at competing sites to see why they work better – but that’s work for when i have free time.
Great information and tips, I’m still new and working on getting page ranking. My site comes up on page two on some of my key words which isn’t bad considering I just started the site two months ago.